


A TEENAGER Z

by gorejeongin



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ATEEZ Storyline Event, Alternate Universe - High School, Blind Character, Blind Kang Yeosang, Gen, LMAO, Parallel Universes, Trans Male Character, Trans Park Seonghwa, im mad late w this, this kinda sucks i just wanted it to get more exposure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25396366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorejeongin/pseuds/gorejeongin
Summary: Seonghwa is the new kid that moves to a new town to get a fresh start. Unbeknownst to him, this town wouldn't be any more peaceful than the last one.
Kudos: 11





	A TEENAGER Z

**Author's Note:**

> this is my submission for the ateez storyline event which im still mad about it being rigged so the first people and the last ppl to post would get the most views and also ppl doing giveaways in exchange for likes :////
> 
> but yeah i just wanted to post it, she deserves better <3
> 
> ps: shout out to @hwnwngs and @diorsooyoung on twt for helping me w this, ily both

Maybe his parents shouldn’t have moved here. The first thing he noticed was that when they drove into town, the sign had been removed. For what reason? Who knows. That, along with the missing mailboxes, car tires, and fences, rubs him the wrong way, but this town was far too special for him to be spooked just by that. This place, Aurora (named after the aurora borealis that would come around during winter), was a chance for Seonghwa to finally be himself. To be Seonghwa and not some other person under some other name with long hair and wide hips and a high voice. The only thing he had remaining from his old life was the bracelet he wore, an old gift from one of his closest friends that he had to leave behind. Yes, he had to deal with his parents calling him the wrong name and occasionally hearing them say daughter instead of son, but the fact that they were willing to pick up and move just for his sake showed that they did actually care. 

When he woke up for school the next day and found one of his stuffed animals missing, he couldn't say he was happy. But was he going to tell his mom that they were robbed in the dead of night? No, he has too much to worry about today. His three goals were as follows: don’t look ugly, don’t say something stupid, and don’t die. Frankly, he has the first one on lockdown, but the other two are gonna be hard. 

Homeroom and first period pass by okay, he introduces himself without throwing up so that was a win, but for some wicked reason he has gym second period which is absolutely going to warrant a loss somewhere in his book. After changing in one of the shower stalls, which warrants him strange looks because of course it does, it’s weird, he slinks out of the locker room and walks over to his classmates. They’re doing a fitness test today (of course) which means he needs a partner (of course) and everyone flocks to their friends except one dude (of course). 

“Seonghwa, partner up with Yunho,” his gym teacher tells him before walking off to do nothing for the next 15 minutes. 

Yunho, to put it lightly, looks like he’s going to die. His eyes are sunken in and his skin looks almost paper-like. No wonder nobody wants to pair up with him. Without saying a word, Yunho sits down and Seonghwa follows suit. They just sort of… stare at each other, waiting for the other to speak while pretending to stretch. That’s when Seonghwa overhears something. 

“The poor transfer kid has to team up with Yunho. What if he disappears before he even finishes his first day?”

“Yeah. I’d probably be as bummed as him if my brother suddenly vanished, but I bet the new kid just thinks he’s weird.” 

Seonghwa’s eyes widen and he jerks his head to face Yunho. His expression doesn’t change but his eyes become darker, his gaze drops. 

“Your brother’s missing?” Seonghwa asks out of surprise more than pity. 

As soon as the words hit him, Yunho storms off into the boys’ locker room. The teacher tries chasing after him but he gives up. It seems like everyone knew but him. 

\--- 

It was finally his lunch period. Seonghwa had just left history class where he had to do _another_ ice breaker in front of everyone and he swore people were staring at him the entire period. He walks around the cafeteria, everyone already acclimated with their friends. He was a senior and the school year was already halfway finished, so he didn’t expect to be making many friends here. His eyes scan the place in search of a seat so he could just sit down, eat, and think about nothing for a half-hour. He stops in the corner of the cafeteria where a blond-haired boy sat with his head resting in his hand as he read a book. No one else was sitting near him so he figured the guy was a loner and therefore would not talk to him. Once he stood at the table, he clears his throat which makes the boy look up.

“Uh, hi. Do you mind if I sit here?”

The other dude glances over and nods, not giving Seonghwa much attention, but soon enough he realises that it’s almost graduation and he has never seen Hwa before, so he turns back. 

“Wait, are you new or something? I’ve never seen you before,” he asks, tilting his head in the way people do when they’re curious about something. 

Seonghwa splutters for a second, not expecting any form of conversation. “I- uh, yeah, I am. My name’s Seonghwa.” 

“Oh, word. I’m Mingi. Nice meeting you.” 

Mingi reaches over to shake Seonghwa’s hand, and with that, their conversation is over. Seonghwa eats his half-sauced school pasta quietly, wondering about how the rest of his day is gonna go. 

\--- 

It’s now the end of Seonghwa’s first day at Crescent Preparatory High School and nothing noteworthy happens other than some dude breaking a beaker in chemistry and having to go to the nurse, though Seonghwa didn’t really care that much if he had to admit it. He walks around the halls looking for his locker which he finds to be in practically the worst place or best place imaginable depending on how much of a delinquent you are. As the day went on, Seonghwa’s bag had progressively gotten heavier with the new textbooks he had been given, so he’s beyond grateful for the opportunity to uncompress his spine. While unloading his bag, he hears an odd tapping noise from behind him. Slowly, that noise becomes louder and eventually lands in front of him. A walking stick. 

The boy in front of him, a blond with soft features and quite the sense of style was standing in front of him, taking and placing books in and out of his locker. 

“I might not be able to see but I can tell you’re staring,” he quips. 

“Oh! Uh, sorry. I just, you know, haven’t met a blind classmate before.” Seonghwa can feel his ears heat up as he glances up to the guy. He catches his name on one of the books being put into his locker, Kang Yeosang. 

“You’re new, I can forgive you. I’m Yeosang, welcome to the badlands. By the way, stuff has been disappearing all over the place, so it’s kind of a bad time for you to be moving here. Also a person, Jeong Yunho’s brother, which you shouldn’t bring up to him for obvious reasons.” 

“Might have already done that. Made him storm off during gym.” Seonghwa’s blushing even more. He knew it was dumb to mention it to Yunho but his mouth started moving before his brain could process the words. 

“Oh wow, nice job. Well, I have to go before my mom thinks I fell down the stairs or something and starts panicking. It’s nice meeting you…”

“Seonghwa. Park Seonghwa.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Seonghwa. Oh, by the way, there is something nice about this town: I heard the stars are beautiful here.” And with that, Yeosang was gone. 

  
  


⧖

  
  


It’s now the last day of school and Seonghwa is boiling. Aurora was a small town, so it’s not like they had an amazing budget, but would it really kill them to add an A/C somewhere? Seonghwa had to take his lunch outside, eating a salad directly under the summer sun, but at least his friends were cool with sitting with him. 

“Sorry for spamming the group chat last night but my dream was insane,” Hongjoong said, jumping down the stairs leading up to the school entrance and walking over to the metal table everyone was sitting at. 

“I already read it. Something about some dude with a fedora? And an hourglass?” Wooyoung spoke up, mouth stuffed with bread and meat from his sandwich. 

“It was a bowler cap, actually.”

“Who cares, it just means you need to sleep more often. These weird dreams are because you live off of Monster Energy coffee.” 

“Shut it, Mingi. It felt so real. The bowler cap guy actually looked like you, now that I think about it.” Hongjoong digs his, of course, Monster Energy coffee out of his bag along with a ham sandwich wrapped in foil out of his bag. The can cracks open with a satisfying snap and a smile blooms on the blue-nette’s face. 

Mingi laughs, looking flabbergasted. “What, did I tell you that your dreams are yours to decide or something?”

Hongjoong’s smile drops. “Yeah, you did, actually.”

“Oh…”

The table is quiet for a second. Yunho and Jongho were quiet the entire time, actually. From what Jongho had told San that San told the rest of the group, they had gotten into a fight about Yunho’s brother and have been tense for almost a week now. They both didn’t want to suddenly stop hanging out with everyone, so they just decided to join the gang but not speak. Because obviously that was better. Jongho is never the type of person to cause conflict. He is honestly a nice kid. He has good grades, enough to skip a year of school and become a senior at the age of 16, he does volunteer work, he is genuinely a good, supportive friend. It was just one slip of the tongue. Combine that with Yunho’s abrasive personality, to put it nicely, and they just crashed. It’s hard to see them like this, but it’s especially hard to see Jongho.

San speaks up. He always was the mood maker of the group. When the school had heard that he had run away from his family to stay with his friends by literally jumping out of their car and running all the way home, he became the most popular kid in school. He’s also homeless and has been couch surfing ever since, but at least he’s with the people he loves. A lot of the time, wherever San was, Mingi would follow. Mingi’s family wasn’t exactly affluent, so Mingi shamefully mooched off of whatever welfare San was given. Most people didn’t mind, but he still felt bad about it. Even if he didn’t say so, people could tell. 

“So, A Teenager Z group chat, how are we going to celebrate Wooyoung’s last day in Aurora?”

About a month ago, Wooyoung sent a series of texts to Seonghwa in the middle of the night. His parents told him he was moving. Everyone knows how strict his parents are, so it was understandable that he couldn’t just say no. He’d probably get chained to the car if he even brought up the idea of him staying in Aurora. 

“Aren’t we gonna do the bonfire like we do every year?” Yeosang asks, toying with the straw of his drink. It was probably a frappe, considering that’s all he drinks. 

“Hey,” Seonghwa starts, “are we sure we want to go out into the middle of the woods while things have been disappearing left and right? Like, I want to make it to the day I start hormone therapy.”

“The town sign wasn’t wandering in the woods when it disappeared, Seonghwa. We’ll be fine. Unless you’re too chicken to hang out with us?” 

A coy smile grows on Hongjoong’s face and everyone else follows suit, even Yunho and Jongho. Jeers slowly get louder and eventually the table is a boisterous mess. 

“Okay! I’ll go, now everyone shut up before I back out and leave you morons in the woods alone.” 

\--- 

So maybe these woods are terrifying. Mingi has complained multiple times about hearing whispering, particularly the phrase ‘open your eyes’, and has since then refused to do so. Yeosang has made probably 300 blind jokes since then and San has “accidentally” stepped on his foot every single time. Overall, the group is a mess. Oh, and Wooyoung isn’t here. Because his parents want to ruin everything he has, Wooyoung’s parents had decided that they would be leaving tonight and not tomorrow night, but he begged everyone to go and have fun anyway. They all agreed reluctantly, but it seems like everyone’s already forgotten about Wooyoung

“Hey, is it a bit late to tell y’all that in my dream I saw the hat dude in the woods?” Hongjoong suddenly speaks up. Immediately everyone stops dead in their tracks. 

“...Yes, Hongjoong. Yes, it is. Why did it not occur to you that the spooky dream man that kind of looked like Mingi would be kind of important when we mentioned we were going into the woods?” Seonghwa is practically vibrating. Out of fear or anger or just because his body wants to run as far away as possible but his brain is refusing, he doesn’t know. 

_Crunch._

_Crunch. Crunch. Crunch._

The entire group is dead quiet. 

“Guys?” 

Out from the brush, Wooyoung steps into view. All at once, the huddle of boys sighs in relief. But there’s something wrong. Seonghwa notices that Wooyoung isn’t smiling. He isn’t even looking at them. And then Seonghwa sees the glint of chains. 

“Wooyoung, who’s behind you?” Seonghwa’s throat begged him not to speak, but he couldn’t help himself. He always speaks first and regrets it later, but who knows what could have happened if Seonghwa didn’t?

“It’s not the reality that makes you lose your dream: It is your decision.” The voice was crystal clear, almost as if the man was speaking inside of Seonghwa’s head. And from the others’ reactions, it wasn’t just him that felt like that. 

Both Wooyoung and the man step forward. The shadows of the brush stop obscuring them and now they all can see what’s actually happening. Holding Wooyoung by the back of his shirt, a man decorated in chains and a decorative mask came into view. Somehow, even though he was clearly visible, it was like Seonghwa’s eyes refuse to focus. His entire body changes every time he looks at him. One second he was wearing a turtleneck and chains, and the second he has a coat cinched at his waist. 

“Yo, let Wooyoung go! Who the hell are you?” San shouts, stomping out of the group huddle to stand face-to-face with the ephemeral man. San was always brave. Sometimes too brave. 

“Do you want to waste your lives here? Never living the way you truly want to? Unable to achieve happiness because of the trivial limitations of the human world?” 

“Are you implying that you’re not human?” This time its Yeosang that speaks up. Seonghwa realises that Yeosang can’t see the man’s body swim in and out of reality. He can’t see Wooyoung being held against his will either. 

“Would you rather suffer here, never able to be who you want? To do what you want? To be able to see your goals right in front of you but be chained down and watch them float away? To watch them disappear, or not be able to watch them at all? Why not leave and travel to a world, a utopia, where you can achieve anything you desire?” 

The man speaks like he knows exactly what everyone desires. Mingi never had a dream because his poverty weighed him down. Yeosang believed his blindness kept him away from experiencing the world. Yunho had his dream stripped away from him when his brother disappeared. Hongjoong’s dreams were always seen as too lofty to be achieved. Wooyoung’s dreams were never his, to begin with. San felt like the world was too small for his dreams. Jongho always stopped himself from dreaming, scared that he would fly too high and fall too far. And Seonghwa? His dream was physically impossible. 

The group had made a promise a few months ago that they’d all achieve their dreams together. That “the A Teenager Z group chat will all achieve happiness together as one,” San proclaimed one day during a group call. Though it was treated as a joke, they all genuinely wanted it to come true. So when they heard of this ‘utopia’ that the man in the fedora was talking about, it was as if a chord was struck inside them all. 

“This utopia...is that where everything from this town is being taken?” Yunho’s tone was pensive. This place could be where his brother was if what the man was saying about their dreams was true. 

“The utopia is where all your dreams can be found. It is the beginning of the end, where everything is achieved. Do you wish to go there?” 

Everyone looks at each other. Wooyoung was finally looking up, staring directly at the group with his gaze unwavering. Yeosang grabs Seonghwa’s hand and squeezes it. Mingi held everyone just a little bit closer than before. 

It was Hongjoong that spoke up instead of Seonghwa. Hongjoong has always been their leader. 

“Yes. Take us to this utopia.” 

The masked man let go of Wooyoung, who immediately runs over to the group with his arms spread, greeting everyone in a bruising hug. Turning over his hand, an hourglass appears. Hongjoong gasps upon seeing it, whispering to himself about how he had seen it in his dreams. The hourglass was glowing, blue and gold light shining from it and illuminating the man’s eyes. The sand was settled at the bottom, but when he flips it over, the sand began to flow. It didn’t fall into the centre, it simply began flowing, backwards. 

In a blink, the forest ceases to exist. The masked man was gone. Only their bodies and the hourglass were left. In their heads, they heard one last phrase. 

_“Welcome to your dystopia, ATEEZ. One day, you will reach your utopia.”_


End file.
